


home trip

by frausorge



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frausorge/pseuds/frausorge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fly out separately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home trip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [light_source](https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/gifts).



They fly out separately, first Tim by himself, then Buster with the twins a day later. Tim offered to go together with them to help, but though Buster looked tempted, he ended up shaking his head. "Too many questions," he said, and Tim conceded the point.

So Tim stays overnight in Atlanta, and Buster and the kids pick him up after they get in the next afternoon so that they can all head down to Leesburg together. It's not a terribly long drive in and of itself, but it's tedious after the already long flight, and Lee and Addie are both increasingly cranky, despite Tim's best silly faces and "The Fox" on repeat. It's a relief when they finally fall asleep just outside of Macon.

Buster falls silent then too, only partly, Tim thinks, for fear of waking them. Tim had thought about offering to drive a shift, since he's presumably better rested, but in the end he keeps his mouth shut. Buster's hands are firm on the wheel at ten and two and don't move until Tim uncaps a water bottle and passes it over. Buster looks over then with a quick nod and half a smile.

Tim has met Buster's parents before, of course. They've come to plenty of games and other team events, and he's shaken their hands, given and accepted compliments on Buster's play, even chatted with them alone for half an hour to entertain them while Buster was in a meeting with Bochy. But Tim's not fooling himself that this will be anything like that.

Tim's dad, at Thanksgiving, eyed Buster with considerable wariness, but that was mainly because he remembers more insistently than Tim cares to how unhappy Tim was during Buster's first season. 

"You be good to him," Tim's dad said finally.

"Yes, sir," Buster said. Tim's dad didn't normally care about being called "sir", but Tim saw the corners of his mouth relax at that, and he clapped Buster on the shoulder and handed him a beer. But Tim's not fooling himself that this will be anything like that.

He notices that Ylvis is still playing, at the low volume the kids fell asleep to, and after another glance back at them, decides to switch to one of Buster's own road trip playlists. Buster looks over again and gives Tim a slightly wider smile. 

The sun was already setting when they hit Macon, and after another half an hour it gets too dark to see the fields around them. Or anything, really, other than the patch of road lit up by their headlights, the warm, dusky space inside the car, and themselves rolling along in it.

Tim wouldn't mind staying like that a while longer. It can't last, though, and Buster doesn't need to see the scenery to take the right exits and turns. It feels like they've barely gotten off the highway when he makes a final turn into a long driveway, pulls all the way up to the front of the house, and stops.

Tim gets out and goes around to the trunk. Before he can reach for the suitcases, Buster clears his throat. "Could you, uh, could you get the girl?" 

"Sure," Tim says. Buster doesn't usually ask that, having become a pro at wrangling both his children at once, but it's not like Tim minds. Addie stirs and whimpers a little while Tim's getting her out of her car seat, but once he lifts her clear she puts her arms around his neck and immediately zonks out again on his shoulder. It's kind of sweet, really.

"I know what you're doing," Tim says as it clicks. "You want me to be holding their grandchild when they see me." Buster doesn't respond, but he looks up from Lee's seatbelt as Tim comes around the side of the car, and the answer is written all over his face. "You think it'll help?"

"Maybe?" Buster says. "It can't hurt?"

He looks so horribly uncertain, so far from his normal quiet authority, that Tim's heart twists inside him. But what authority can hold when Buster himself has rattled the foundations of everything he was taught?

"Don't be mad," Buster says.

Tim shakes his head. "I'm not mad," he says. "You- you're that scared, and you still brought me here."

Buster makes a face. He doesn't like being called scared, Tim knows, but it's true for all that. "I want you here," Buster says. "I want-" 

He hesitates, then gives up on that sentence and leans over to press his mouth to Tim's. Despite the bad angle, despite everything, it's good. So good.

That, of course, is when the front door opens in a spill of light, and that's how Demp and Traci see Tim: carrying their granddaughter and kissing their son.

Demp looks nothing so much as blank. Traci, for a split second, looks miserable. Then she smoothes her face out and gives them a smile. "Come in, boys," she says, holding the door open. "You must be tired out. We've got some supper waiting for you."

Buster gives Tim that same smile and turns back to pick Lee up. Tim hoists Addie higher on his hip and follows Buster inside.


End file.
